1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and system for performing a real-time operation. More specifically, the invention relates to a scheduling method of scheduling threads to perform a real-time operation and an information processing system using the scheduling method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, computer systems such as server computers have utilized system architecture such as a multiprocessor and a parallel processor in order to improve in throughput. Both of the multiprocessor and parallel processor achieve a parallel computing operation using a plurality of processing units.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 10-143380 discloses a computer system having a plurality of processing units. This computer system includes a single high-speed CPU, a plurality of low-speed CPUs and a shared memory. Processes are assigned to the high-speed and low-speed CPUs in consideration of parallelism and execution time of each process.
Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 8-180025 discloses a scheduling technique of scheduling threads such that threads belonging to the same process are executed on the same processor.
Not only the computer system but also an embedded device, which needs to process a large amount of data such as AV (audio video) data in real time, has recently required that system architecture such as a multiprocessor and a parallel processor be introduced to improve in throughput.
Under the present circumstances, however, a real-time processing system that is predicated on the above system architecture is hardly reported.
In a real-time processing system, each operation needs performing under given timing constraint. For this reason, in a program for performing a real-time operation, timing constraints such as the execution start timing and end timing of each operation have to be described in detail in codes of the program. This program coding operation requires a lot of time and effort. Further, in order to effectively use a plurality of processor units, descriptions for designating the processor units also need to be included in the codes.